


You are tired wilderness and cracked bones

by SwanIcarus



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Aurora/Mulan - Freeform, Eventual Romance, F/F, Gradual Romance, Past Aurora/Philip - Freeform, Romance, Slow Build, The Enchanted Forest, after season 2, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3907402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwanIcarus/pseuds/SwanIcarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nights are clear and beautiful, but also treacherously cold, and Aurora secretly compares them to her travelling companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are tired wilderness and cracked bones

 

_"Lie all you want. I know love when I see it"_

_"You're wrong"_

 

 

 The North mountains are jagged with cliffs and sharp corners, but Mulan remembers the safe pathways. The harsher the wind stings her skin, the more Aurora learns learns to toughen up to the frigid cold as she follows the other woman over the rocky surface. The nights are clear and beautiful, but also treacherously cold, and Aurora secretly compares them to her travelling companion. Every dawn breaking over the next mountain is a dawn that Mulan wakes, grumpy and still tired, to Aurora standing on the cliffs edge staring at the road in front of them. They have a long way to go. 

"This was a gift from my mother" Aurora wines as Mulan kneels and cuts the princess's long dress free of a tree branch. The white and purple satin is ripped and worn out. Mulan tears the caught fabric away while giving the girl a dry look. 

"The North mountain is no place for ballgowns, princess" she stands, weary and weather worn, and sheathes her small blade. 

"Well I wasn't planning on venturing into the wilderness with a wild woman" Aurora snaps, reminding Mulan of a wolf rather than a princess. She watches, amused, as Aurora tries to brush the dirt and sticks from her already ruined dress. She picks a stick out of her auburn hair. 

 

They sleep uneasy as the sun goes down. Mulan always tries to find a place shielded from sight, hidden by boulders. She won't say what, but she knows there are dangers up here, either people or creatures who mean ill will. Every night, she hands Aurora a small blade and tells her "Wake me if you hear something". And every night, Aurora sits away from the burning camp fire and the warm lull of sleep. They mean nothing to her. 

 

"What is beyond the mountain in the North?" Aurora ventures one day while pointing a finger at a far off snowy peak. Mulan glances into the distance, then continues feeding kindling to the small fire they sit by. 

"That is Asada, the Hollow Mountain" Mulan murmurs and warms her hands close to the flames "There is a fishing village at its base. I've never been there: I hear the villagers are suspicious and old in their ways. They wouldn't take to a travelling warrior from a distant land". 

"I thought the only people that lived near mountain villages where miners. Why fishing? Surely there is more benefit in mining".

"Where did you hear that? Read it in a book? You know nothing of this place, princess" Mulan scoffs, then continues "They are fishers, you see, because they cannot mine. There's a reason it's called The Hollow Mountain, you know. The first men to arrive to the village brought axes and metal and fire to build a mine into the mountain. When they had dug so far into the mountain, they discovered that there was nothing to dig after a certain way. There was nothing inside, only darkness and what the men described as a cold draft seeping through their shoes into their feet"

"What a horrible tale". 

 

That night, Aurora lay awake as always, next to the dying fire. Visions of a dark mountain and cold drafts floated inside her mind as she stared at the burning embers. 


End file.
